


Mint Tea

by doctor_bitchface_phd



Category: Half-Life, The Borrowers - All Media Types
Genre: G/T, Giant/Tiny, Panic Attacks, They/Them Pronouns for Gordon Freeman, borrower au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26260756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctor_bitchface_phd/pseuds/doctor_bitchface_phd
Summary: Another thump, then another, then another. Enormous, ground-shaking footsteps, coming closer. His body froze up, locked in place in the middle of the countertop, muscles refusing to respond, every ingrained borrower instinct screaming at him to run, to hide, to get the hell out of the open. Yet he couldn’t move as the bone-rattling steps grew louder, and louder, until finally, a colossal figure appeared in the far doorway, casting a vast shadow in the light from the other room.
Comments: 64
Kudos: 210





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i enjoy borrower aus :)

In the blue, artificial light seeping in through the tiny crack in the wooden paneling, Barney could just barely make out the climbing rope in his paws, the barbed tip of the hook at the end glinting wickedly as he turned it around and around, stalling for what seemed like hours. The house was nearly dead, the quiet patter of the rain outside the only backdrop to his nervous thoughts. It wasn’t that he hadn’t borrowed here before; he had taken this route hundreds of times, and he had never been caught once; Well, not by this bean, at least. Even just the word, caught, sent a shiver down his spine, phantom sensations of massive fingers squeezing against his ribs. Barney knew better than anyone about just how cruel humans could be.

A sharp clatter stung his ears, the scrape of ceramic on metal, and he stood silently, almost perfectly still, his eyes blown wide, ears flat against the sides of his head; the only movement in the dark, tiny space was the slight trembling of his tail, quivering silently in the near pitch blackness. 

A lifetime passed. He waited, counting as high as he could go before losing track, he waited until he couldn’t bear to be still any longer; slowly, ever so painfully slowly, Barney began to wiggle the icy-cold chunk of wood out from where it had been previously wedged into the thin little opening between the wall and the wood paneling. It finally slid out, and he carefully, ever carefully leaned it off to the side; he would be able to pull it back behind him when he returned with his borrowings. Barney supposed that the noise from earlier was just some dishes settling in the sink; if the human hadn’t woken up by now, then he was probably still out cold, just as he was when he had checked before coming to the kitchen.

Silently creeping through the little crack in the wall, Barney looked up, taking in the same vast expanse of hard, smooth wood, coated in a thick layer of dust; the human of the house wasn’t big on keeping things particularly tidy, much to the borrower’s relief. Being the main provider for a family of four was hard enough without some massive neat freak around to sweep up every crumb and dropped chip. The cold, silent glow of the muted television in the other room flickered and stuttered, casting a strange, eerie light on the enormous room around him.

Tonight’s target was a rather basic one; the towering countertops weren’t nearly as hard to climb as they looked, and the task was made much, much easier by the hook that Eli had specially crafted for him. It was always nice to have some decent gear. The counters held paper towels and sleeves of crackers, both of which always seemed to be in short supply around the house, though if he was lucky, he may be able to snag some sugar; Alyx had talked about wanting to bake a cake.

With a hand made expert by years of practise, Barney flung the hook upwards, doing a little victory fist pump when it snagged into the wood on the first try, and beginning his ascent; climbing up a vertical rope was never an easy task, but as he hauled himself up over the ledge and onto the scratched, dusty countertop, Barney was grateful for the upper body strength that years of running, climbing, and lugging various things around had granted him.

There was no need to rush; the human was definitely still asleep in the other room. Almost definitely. Despite how much he reassured himself, Barney couldn’t quite banish the last bit of quiet, nagging doubt aching in the back of his mind; he knew better than to just assume that he was fine.

Though he was anxious to get home, there really was no rush; the human would be asleep for a few more hours, at the least. Still, Barney’s pace was quick as he made his way across the scuffed wood. The box of crackers was in sight, left open and sitting on its side, easy pickings for any borrower to come and nab. Carefully, ever carefully, Barney unfurled the plastic sleeve, ever aware of every tiny crinkling sound that emanated.

A thump echoed from across the house. It was loud, and very, very close; it had likely come from the bedroom where. . . oh, shit. Barney stumbled back from the box, his ears straining against his head to pick up any sort of-

Another thump, then another, then another. Enormous, ground-shaking footsteps, coming closer. His body froze up, locked in place in the middle of the countertop, muscles refusing to respond, every ingrained borrower instinct screaming at him to run, to hide, to get the hell out of the open. Yet he couldn’t move as the bone-rattling steps grew louder, and louder, until finally, a colossal figure appeared in the far doorway, casting a vast shadow in the light from the other room. Barney’s legs began to shake. Every horrible scenario he could imagine swirled in bloody pools in his mind, visions of torturous death, of cages and scalpels, of vast hands closing around Alyx, and Kleiner, and everyone else in his family.

Barney usually tried to forget about humans, tried to ignore the way the ceiling sometimes shook in their little crawlspace home, tried to ignore the soft snores coming from down the hall when he was borrowing. But at the sight of the vast silhouette striding towards the counter, he found the fault in his attempts; now, because he ignored the possibility of the human having woken up, because he took a bet on his safety, and his family’s safety as well, Barney was most likely never going to see any of them again.

The chances of a borrower escaping from a human were slim to none, and the chances of pulling it off twice weren’t even worth thinking about. 

An enormous shadow fell over him, blotting out what little dim light there was; though he was so terrified that it ached in his chest, Barney felt compelled to look up. The only visible part of the human’s face was his eyes, those eyes that glinted the barest, lightest green, like sparkling mint tea in the swath of shadow covering his features. The human’s head almost tilted, the scantest movement of his neck barely even there. 

Barney fell to his knees, unable to stay upright anymore. The shifting sound of cloth socks scraping against linoleum barely rasped against his ears, and he snapped his head up, terrified.

The human turned around.

A thump that made the counter under Barney’s paws shudder, then another, then another, leading down the hall and away from the prone borrower, cut off by the quiet creak and click of a door being closed.

Barney lay there for a while.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for detailed description of a panic attack, from "The splintered, scratched-up wood he sat on was cold under his legs" to "A loud squeal ripped through Barney’s mind", also there's a spider

The gloves were soft, black leather, crafted from scraps of some old bag, the material worn down at the knuckles and fingertips from years of use. Barney picked absentmindedly at the edges of the seams, peeling off little flecks to flutter to the floor; he would have to sweep that up later. The door loomed in front of him, black ink on worn, tattered cardboard barely readable; “llingham, WA, 98225”. Barney let his mind wander, wondering about the possibilities of what it could mean; what the hell did “llingham” mean, anyways? Though he knew that he would eventually need to open the door, Barney opted to wait however long it took for the sensation of a cold chunk of ice lodged in his throat to melt. 

The splintered, scratched-up wood he sat on was cold under his legs, the perpetual chill of the walls seeping through the thick layers of fleece, his warm winter coat and pants seemingly doing little to keep out the numbing bite of a particularly cold autumn. His muscles crawled and twitched under his skin, as though rebelling against his very bones. Barney’s hands shuddered and cramped as his skeleton seemed to crumble and crack, his brain melting and gelling and rioting against his skull, his eyes rotting and dripping out of their sockets as his vision turned to nothing but color and light, the world around him reduced to inscrutable shapes and lines.

His skin hurt, like a thin layer of ice cracking and splintering into his flesh. He leaned against the dusty wall and vomited, the taste of rancid, bitter acid pervading every inch of his mouth and nose; the world spun around him, like he was falling and hitting the ground at the same time. Everything hurt.

A loud squeal ripped through Barney’s mind, piercing his ears like a sharp piece of metal as the door was slowly pushed open, little dollhouse hinges shrieking with rust as Alyx peered out from behind the doorframe, casting a shadow in the warm light spilling out from the house; her eyes widened at the sorry sight of Barney.

“Uncle Barney! You- You’re back! What happened?”

Alyx rushed to embrace him, the salty sting of the tears in his eyes forgotten as Barney hugged her back.

“Hey there, kiddo.”

“A-are you alright? What happened?! You’ve been gone for nearly six hours.”

Jesus. He knew he’d taken too long to get up from the counter, but that was a little much.

“Y-yeah. I’m alright. Just. . .”

A long, painful silence passed between the two, seeming like hours though it was likely only minutes; Alyx’s face fell, a near imperceivable, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shift of muscle.

“I’m just tired.”

The two shuffled inside, Barney still reeling from. . . whatever that was. He just hoped Alyx didn’t see him like that; the sour bite of acid stung on his tongue at the thought. 

The house was warm, the yellow-orange light of the corner fireplace spilling across the particle-board floor, handcrafted furniture casting flickering shadows in the gentle glow. Colorful scraps of fleece cloth, all pastel blues and forest greens, delicate lilacs and deep, rich reds, stitched together into a little floor rug, spread in front of the little stone hearth; on the rug lay a journal, with pages made from rough, thick, human-made paper split into thinner, borrower-sized pages, bound in a little piece of leather, with a tie from the same scrap holding it shut; a birthday gift for Alyx, made by Eli and Barney for her nineteenth; it was hard to believe that was five years ago.

Seated on the little padded chair beside the fireplace, steam drifting up from a familiar ceramic mug set on the floor next to him; the little thing was almost bowl-like in shape, painted in sunlit yellow and acid green, made by Alyx for Kleiner’s birthday a few years ago. The borrower in question glanced up from his book, “Introduction to Quantum Physics and String Theory”, his eyes widening slightly at the rather disheveled sight of Barney. Kleiner slid the comically large and unwieldy book off of his lap and stood, nearly knocking his tea over in haste.

“My God, Barney! Where have you been? It’s been hours since you left!”

The older borrower rushed to his side; the look in his eyes, that distant fear, it scared Kleiner, and it worried him too. He tried to convince himself that he didn’t yet know what had happened to Barney to distress him this badly, but the answer itched and gnawed at the back of his skull.

“He was just sitting outside the door. . .”

“Barney. . . What exactly happened to cause you to be so late?”

He doesn’t look up, doesn’t meet Kleiner’s eyes; he likely already knows. 

“I. . . I’d just like to get to bed, doc.”

“Of course.”

Kleiner sounds strangely solemn, as if saying his last goodbyes before. . . before what? Barney can’t seem to bring himself to finish that line of thought.

“Do you, uh, happen to know where Eli is?”

“He’s down visiting Magnusson again; you know, I really don’t think-”

A loud clatter came from Kleiner’s workstation in the corner of the room, the sound of a metal cup being tossed off of the counter by some unknown force. Well, previously unknown, as the stunted little wolf spider skittered towards Barney on all seven legs.

“Ghah! Kleiner, get your damn pet before it bites someone!”

“Lamaar! There you are, sweetie!”

“Okay, now I’m definitely going to bed.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barney and Eli have a chat.

The blanket was too hot. Well, everything felt too hot, but the thick scrap of wool knit in particular seemed to radiate every bit of body heat right back onto him; his skin was clammy with a cold sweat, the fabric clinging to his skin like sticky plastic wrap.

Barney sat up in his bed. He had been lying there, staring silently at the dusty ceiling above him, for what felt like hours, unable to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw those damned eyes again, glittering the coldest, barest green, like evergreen needles in winter, as phantom sensations of giant, leathery digits ghosted down his frame. He tensed at every tiny noise that echoed through the house, every creak of floorboards settling, every distant thud of an enormous footstep.

Shoving the blanket off onto the floor, Barney stood, stretching his back with an almost worryingly loud pop and dressing in the abandoned tunic and pants laid in a pile on the floor, both stitched together from different hues and shades of discarded blue fabric, creating an appearance almost similar to stained glass. Pulling back the curtain that separated his “room” from the rest of the home, Barney saw. . . oh, Lord. This wasn’t good.

Kleiner, Eli and Alyx were huddled around the table, speaking in hushed tones and low whispers, and when they looked up, Barney saw the looks on their faces and he could tell something was horribly wrong. Oh God, did Kleiner guess? Did he tell Eli and Eli guessed? Alyx was the first to break the thick, heavy silence that hung in the air like smoke.

“Hey, Barney. Weren’t you going to bed?”

Her voice quavered, the slighted crack in pitch, like a knife cutting him to his core. God, they knew, they had to, how could they have missed it?

“Well- Yeah, it’s just. . .”

They were all looking at him, all fucking staring through him, cold green eyes surrounding him, glinting in shadow like strange, alien steel, like shards of ice piercing his very soul, cutting him open, tearing into the deepest reaches of his brain.

Barney pressed a hand to the back of his throbbing head.

“I can’t sleep.”

Eli was staring at him now, God, he had been with him when it happened before, and now he could see it in his eyes, in the concern written across his weathered features, he _knew._

“Barney. . .”

God, he couldn’t stop seeing those eyes, those fucking eyes, like mint tea left to sit for too long, cooled into a dirty green mess. Barney wasn’t exactly sure why his paws slipped from beneath him, but as the cold plastic floor rushed up to meet him, he faintly thought that he might have a bit of a problem.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For one of the first times in her life, Alyx was genuinely scared.

After Barney had come home after a little past six hours when he said he wouldn’t be gone for two, Kleiner had gone and fetched her dad from where he’d been staying at Magnusson’s, and the two had been acting really, _really_ weird. 

Then Barney got up and faceplanted on the floor.

“Jesus, okay- Alyx, help me get him up!”

Alyx took one shoulder, as her father with the other, and together they shuffled Barney over to the heavy, circular table in the center of the room, helping him into a seat made from discarded popsicle sticks, the red-stained ends arranged in such a way that a cute little coloration of the seat was achieved.

Barney groaned quietly and pressed the pads of his paws against his temples, trying to relieve his new headache, and failing.

“. . . Whuhhappened? Are y’all alright?”

“Yes, everyone is safe and secure. Potentially excluding you, depending on what happened on your expedition.”

“What Kleiner means to say is that we need to talk about what happened to make an hour into six.”

He looked like a deer caught in the headlights, not that any of the borrowers gathered in the little den had ever seen a deer in person. 

“Barney. I’m going to ask you some very important questions, and I _need_ you to answer, okay?”

Eli already knew what had happened; there was only one thing that could shake Barney like this.

“Did he hurt you?”

Barney cringed away, as though the words themself stung.

“No, I’m okay. I’ll be fine if I can just get some rest.”

“. . . How bad do you think this is?”

Barney’s hazel eyes shifted to the scrap-metal prosthetic that substituted for Eli’s left leg.

“I just don’t know.”

“Eli, if I may interrupt, the temperature outside has been steadily decreasing, and I don’t predict that it will be warming up again any time before spring. We may not have a choice in whether we stay.”

The table went quiet at that. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place, forced to choose between staying in a house with a human who had spotted one of them and could attack at any minute, or almost certainly freezing to death outside while looking for a new house to settle in. There wasn’t really a choice at all, as a matter of fact.

Barney spoke up, his voice hoarse.

“Well, that about settles it. We’ll just have to stick it out, at least until spring.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The blanket was still too warm.

He had lay back down, tried for innumerable more hours to maybe get a scant wink of sleep in before he had to get up for the day, but the itching feeling of being watched wouldn’t leave him. Barney still saw cold, green eyes every time he closed his own.

He just wanted this over with. The drawn-out waiting, the aching fear in his chest that only built up over time, the constant _unsureness_ that pervaded his every move. Barney didn’t want to feel like this every time he needed to borrow, to provide for his family. God, he didn’t want _Alyx_ to feel like this.

He had a thought, a strange, alien wisp of a concept that drifted across his mind like smoke from a smoldering candle. He couldn’t do much against an opponent like this, that was for sure, but maybe he could settle this another way.

Under any other circumstances, Barney never would have even considered the idea, yet stress and sleep deprivation seemed to warp the mind as he rose from the bed and donned his heavy wool-scrap coat for the second time that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for the kind comments, they are the juice that fuels my writing :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this while listening to mined craft music :)

The house was cold. _Really_ cold. To be fair, it was getting rather late in the year, almost November, even, but would it kill the bean of the house to crank up the thermostat a few degrees?

Barney’s fingertips nipped and stung with chill as he carefully traversed the dark, cramped confines of the tunnel; even with the naturally adept night vision of a borrower, he couldn’t see much further than his ungloved paws. Barney’s only functional senses worth mentioning were that of touch and hearing, and considering that he wasn’t a bat and therefore did not have echolocation, he primarily relied on the former to feel out the old, seldom-used passageway; dust and cobwebs clung to his paws where they grazed the crumbling drywall.

Barney wished he’d brought his gloves. It was a strange, distant thought, almost jarring in how normal it was, considering the abnormality of the situation. He tried not to think about what he was doing, about what every step brought him closer to; he can’t shake the image of a pair of glittering green eyes, each only a little smaller than his head. He shuddered from both the thought of being at a human’s mercy, as well as the cold.

As he approached the end of the tunnel, Barney found that he had second thoughts. Maybe it was the walk, or the cold, or maybe the light filtering into the corridor from the exit ahead, but he was beginning to think this wasn’t a good idea. Then again, what real alternative did he have? Moving out wasn’t an option this late in the year, considering that it could easily start snowing at any time, and he couldn’t just go on borrowing like nothing had happened; though the human hadn’t grabbed him yet, they could easily be plotting to lay down traps, to catch any others that might be around.

There was no other option.

Barney held the idea close in his mind as he carefully wriggled through the tiny crack between the floorboard and the wall, painfully aware of every miniscule noise he made; he could hear it now. The low thrum of the fan situated in the window, and just below it, a soft snoring, barely even audible from down on the floorboards. In front of him, across the floorboards was a vast, wooden structure, a brown dark enough to almost be mistaken for black in the poor light. Looking up, craning his head to see it in the cold, dim light of the moon filtering through the window, under blankets thicker than his entire body, he saw them. 

Glimpses of a vast figure, splayed out, were just barely distinct through the vast swathes of fabric, an arm here, a foot there; Barney could just barely make out the tips of a few fingers showing from under the covers at the other side of the enormous room, almost too far for him to see. It shifted a bit, curling the sheets in a bit tighter around its body.

There was _no other option._

He forced himself to walk forward, carefully, quietly, barely shuffling at a walking pace to reach the other structure in the room, a bedside table of the same material as the bed. Even he wasn’t good enough with a grappling hook to get a safe catch in moving fabric. Barney tried not to think about falling from that sort of height as he swung upwards, catching the edge of the table with a strong underhand throw; somehow the shot didn’t seem so lucky now. The climb went by fast, considering how much shorter the bedside table was then the counter. God, to think that had happened earlier tonight. Time sure went by fast when you were freaking the fuck out.

At the top, on the cold wooden surface, by the strange, red glow of the alarm clock next to him, Barney saw. . . it was next to indescribable. God, one really didn’t get a sense of the sheer fucking _scale_ of humans just running around on the ground. It was _enormous_ , every limb easily longer than a typical borrower den, easily thicker around than his entire body. From his vantage point, with the light next to him, Barney could easily make out the different limbs under the fabric, from the weird, grotesque legs that bent once and stopped in a really fucked up hand-paw thing, to the distinct lack of a tail. A rug-sized patch of long, auburn-brown fur lay just outside of the sheets, disheveled. 

He took a shaky breath. In for four, hold for four, out for four. Carefully, ever carefully, the scrape of his paws against the fabrics ringing in his ears, Barney climbed down onto the bed. The surface was soft, cushiony, like walking on pillows stacked up on top of one another. He could barely keep his balance as he approached; Barney felt warm air through his coat, coming in short bursts. That was its _breath_. He was close enough to feel the force of its exhalation; to be so deeply affected by something as simple to it as breathing made him feel absolutely tiny.

He could see its face now, the scruffy, patchy beard covering their chin that would almost be cute if it weren’t on a face larger than he was, he was close enough to see the overblown creases and pores, see every freckle dotted across their nose, see individual eyelashes, all lit by the eerie glow of the alarm clock behind and above him. Warm breath still rushed past his legs, from a mouth just slightly open, lips thicker than his arm parted in sleep.

He felt like he couldn’t stop moving. It was like when he saw the stars in the night sky for the first time as a child, that strange wonder at that which is alien, mixed with that blood-freezing terror, the absolute, immediate fear that all borrowers knew, and that a few unlucky ones got to know intimately. He reached out, his muscles seeming to act on their own, his ungloved paw reaching, ever reaching towards something, towards. . .

Oh.

The skin was soft and oily, plient, squishing beneath Barney’s outstretched paw; warm to the touch, too. Was this all he needed? The compulsion, the anxiety, the overwhelming, mind-eating fear, it all seemed to, well, not quite _disappear_ , but his mind did calm a little.

God, what the fuck was he doing? Borrower instinct finally overrode anxiety, sleep deprivation, and bad judgement, and Barney backed away, slowly, quietly; maybe if he hurried back, Eli and Kleiner wouldn’t-

A twitch of muscle, a movement so fine that he almost didn’t see it; their eye scrunched up. Liquid ice flowed down from the top of his head to the soles of his paws; He responded, a reflexive preparation, a tensing, a coiling of every muscle in the body, preparing to run. It wasn’t enough, the eye opened anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oggogogogogog thank yall for the kind comments, i eat them for sustenance :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cdda music helped me set the tone for this one :)

A vast eye, still heavy-lidded with sleep, easily wider across than his entire pawspan, unfocused on the scene before it. At such a close distance, Barney could see the reddish-pink of veins snaking through the sclera, as well as the colorful stripes of muscle slowly contracting the black abyss of the pupil; those damn irises, with cold evergreens mixing with warmer tea-colored tones, flecks of glinting darker green rounding out the palette, like some alien metal from a shitty sci-fi flick.

He stepped back on unsteady paws, almost slipping on the yielding ‘ground’ below him; a faint thought drifted through his head for the second time that night. This was what he wanted, wasn’t it? ‘Diplomacy’. Well, he better start thinking of something to say; Barney almost found it funny, the idea of _talking_ to the thing in front of him.

The mass in front of him shifted, its head, slowly lifting up from where it was nestled in the pillows and blankets; a vast limb, an arm, shifted, and Barney flinched hard, fully expecting a fist bigger than he was to slam down onto him; instead, it lay palm-down on the surface of the bed, an enormous hand mere inches away from where Barney stood. It began to push itself up, and Barney could see tendons flex and shift under the skin of its wrist as it shifted upright, its vast torso casting a shadow in the dim, crimson light of the alarm clock above him. 

Its eyes glinted in the weak light, shimmering dangerously; Barney felt his heart thundering weakly in his throat, his breath coming in short, wheezing gasps, his entire body taut with fear. He tried to will himself to run, to sprint off the side of the bed to the distant tunnel in the wall, to break a few bones now and survive later. His legs wouldn’t move, _couldn’t_ move, as though his paws had been caught in a glue trap.

Another arm, reaching far above him, its alien, five-fingered hand grasping for something on the nightstand behind Barney, whose knees finally gave out, forcing him to kneel on the floor. The vast fingers closed around a shadowy mass, deftly unfolding it and returning to push what now appeared to be an enormous pair of glasses onto the face looming above him. Its gaze fell to the borrower below it, its eyes piercing through clumps of ratty hair overhanging its face.

Barney squeaked, a desperate little _pik_ that he regretted the moment it came out; he cringed, expecting retaliation. Now fully sitting up, both of the human’s hands were free, a fact that did not escape the borrower. Seeing the vast creature loom above him, Barney felt more than saw a sharp blackness encroach on the edges of his vision, and he felt tears start to roll down his face.

The human didn’t speak, it just towered above him, silently watching as he trembled beneath it; from such a close distance, Barney could make out its face in the dim, sickly light; it was gaunt, its cheekbones visible even in the shadows, with a sharp, sloped nose, a square jaw and a scruffy beard. Barney tried to avert his eyes, in case it didn’t like him staring, though he admittedly found it hard to look away. What can he say, humans are kind of hard _not_ to pay attention to.

As Barney tried to push himself up on one trembling paw, he felt the ground shift under him; a soft scraping noise could be heard as the human above slid one arm over, its massive hand now resting a little less than an inch away, palm facing toward him, fingers thicker around than his legs poised to grab him. Barney’s legs finally, _finally_ responded, and he lurched back with a horrified shout, falling backwards onto his tail and scooting backwards, staring up at the monster looming over him. God, why the fuck did he come here? What the hell went wrong in his brain to make him think that _this_ was a good idea?

He found himself at the edge of the bed, the human still glaring down at him with its arm outstretched, its eyes glittering like cold mint tea, like the beady eyes of a snake about to swallow him whole. Barney turned, still feeling the glare of its gaze on his back; he felt dizzy at the distance between himself and the floor, and he knew that if he simply jumped he would be _lucky_ to get away with a broken rib or two; then again, he hadn’t been very lucky as of late. 

Deep breath. You can do this.

Barney inhaled deeply, as deeply as his lungs would allow, and leapt, his paws springboarding off of the cushy ledge as hard as he could, and for a moment, he was weightless, like a scrap of tissue paper caught in a breeze.

He was only weightless for a moment. Barney’s breath was forced out of him with a small _whuff_ as he landed earlier than expected, and he shrieked in terror when huge, leathery digits wrapped around him. Barney kicked and pushed at the warm, squishy surface of the human’s palm to no avail; the muscle and skin wrapped around him with an iron grip.

“God, stop, _please_ , I-”

The hand lowered, and, twisting around in the loose fist, Barney could see the monster above him lean over the side of the bed to extend its arm all the way to the floor, reaching past the nightstand to deposit Barney onto the dusty floorboards, its hand sliding away from its grip and back up onto the bed, out of his field of vision.

Barney stood silently for a moment, but only for a moment.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yall want gordon perspective so here they are!!!!! <3

The last remnants of a dream, more feeling than cohesive thought, sliding through their mind, not quite like water, more like warm tea poured through a sieve.

Gordon Freeman blinked the sleep out of their mind, shifting off the couch and onto their bare feet, the cold, dusty hardwood floor creaking under their weight; they felt several joints pop as they stood straight, and winced; they had been meaning to replace that old sofa for a while now, it was a foolish endeavor to even lay down on the damn thing. Shaking off the cobwebbed remnants of sleep from their mind, Gordon trudged into the kitchen on the request of their grumbling stomach.

Opening the pantry cabinet yielded a. . . Well, it was certainly a scene to behold.

Standing in the middle of the pantry shelf was a familiar mouse-man, the same one from their dreams, in fact. However, rather than being a particularly strange interpretation of some inner feeling, produced by the scientist’s brain while they slept, the doll-sized man was currently present in their pantry, crouched on the rim of a jar of peanut butter.

Gordon locked eyes with him, watching as the tiny creature slowly pulled his hands (paws?) out of the jar, tugging what looked like a very tiny pail out of the substance, half-filled with peanut butter. The mouse-man locked eyes with them, staring up wide-eyed as his fluff-tipped tail began to quiver violently. He had digitigrade legs, large, mouse-like ears, a long, hairless tail ending in a pouf of black-grey fur, four-fingered hand-paws tipped with tiny, blunted claws; though the creature’s feet were covered by miniature leather boots, Gordon would guess the same was true for his lower appendages. His face was human enough, and though they couldn’t make out much of the finer details of his visage, Gordon got the impression of a soft, blunt face, with a scruffy five o’clock shadow and big, dark eyes, filled with paralyzing fear at the moment.

The man gave a tiny squeak of fear, backing up and raising his tiny arms above his head. Shit. Gordon began to sign, slowly and gently as not to startle the mouse-man, though he flinched at the movement anyways.

“ _You are safe, I won’t hurt you, you’re okay._ ”

The man stared up at Gordon, his head jerking back and forth to keep up with the movements of their hands as they carefully signed out their reassurances. His tiny face shifted from abject terror to a confused, frightened grimace, and he nervously shook his head.

“I- I don’t- I’m _real_ sorry, but, uhm, I don’t really know what you’re sayin’.”

Gordon stilled at that; so they didn’t know ASL. Well, that was just fucking _awesome_. Did the mouse-people apparently living in their pantry not have accommodations for disabled mice? Or, more likely, they supposed, they simply had a different method or language for nonverbal communication.

“I-I- Um. I really kind of need to go? P-Please?”

The man’s voice cracked on the end of his sentence, and Gordon realized that the present situation must be just as terrifying for the mouse-man as it was confusing for the human, considering the sheer size difference between the two, and that the tiny man had been caught in the act of “stealing”, though a bit of lost peanut butter was something Gordon could live with, as long as the lid was put back on next time.

Gordon thought for a moment on the most universal method signs, then nodded, and slowly backed away from the pantry, slipping behind the cabinet door to try to ease the tiny person’s mind as they scurried away; Gordon found the soft sound of them clomping away in their tiny boots absolutely adorable.

So mouse people are real, apparently. Well, scratch getting mouse-traps for whatever they saw on the counter last night. Though, thinking of it, aside from the impromptu ratfucking of their peanut butter, which Gordon could fully believe was unintentional, they hadn’t really seen any sign of traditional rodent pests. There were no chew marks anywhere in the house, at least not where they could see them, they had never heard any scratching in the walls, and the house had never smelled like rat urine. Any food the mouse-man had taken had been either tightly sealed back up, or already out in the first place, as Gordon had never seen food out that they hadn’t left out themself.

They suppose that their odd, tiny roommate likely won’t do any more damage than he already has, which, as far as Gordon can tell, would appear to be none. What the hell, why not just have a tiny mouse person as a roommate, at least then they might not be so lonely, what with their total lack of a social life. They consider the idea that they may simply be hallucinating, though, checking back in the pantry, yes, the peanut butter is still fucked. 

At least this could be _interesting_ , studying a new species up close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imagine you go to get a snack and there's just like. this tiny person balls deep in your peanut butter. how fucked up would that be


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> barney and gordon finally meet!!!! wooooooo!!!!

There was a book on the table.

Catching his hook in the scratched, gouged wood of the table’s edge was never a particularly difficult task, though Barney found that there was never much point in climbing up there in the first place, as any food that would be left there was either long gone by the time he got to it, or too measly of a scrap to be worth it. Today, however, he was climbing up to the scuffed wooden surface for a different reason.

At some point between his botched trip to the pantry and today, the thick layer of clutter coating the oak dining table had been removed, replacing piles of junk mail, magazines, and dirty mugs with a single large, blue book, human-sized, of course, but likely manageable if he chose to try and read it, which he was going to, because he needed to learn the giant’s language, because _someone_ had to keep the damn peace around here. Barney really didn’t want to try bargaining with a _human_ of all. . . people? Creatures? Whatever the evidently mute giant would be considered, Barney wasn’t all that eager to try getting chummy with them.

Barney clamoured over the edge of the table and stood, taking in the perfectly flat, scuffed expanse of polished oak wood before him, the worn surface interrupted only by the darkish blue of the book laying flat in the middle of the table. Barney made his way over to it and scanned over the title; “The Joy of Signing”, it read, with illustrations of a human hand making similar gestures to the ones that the human had made earlier.

Pushing open the heavy cardboard slab of a cover, Barney quickly got to work studying, taking notes with scraps of paper and his trusty chunk of graphite, broken off from a pencil dropped behind the living room couch. He practiced the words and letters as best he could, flexing his paws into the shapes of each letter, then tried some very common words and grammatical phrases, then finally simple sentences, carefully noting down the motions of each part of the hand and arm.

Barney was very deeply focused on his studying, which was why he failed to notice the soft scrape of enormous footsteps behind him until the human was only a couple of feet away, standing in the doorway to the living room, staring down at him with wide, glittering eyes. In the sunlight streaming in through the open windows of the kitchen, the giant was much more visible, and though the sheer size of its facial features made it difficult to focus on the whole, Barney got the impression of. . . gentle interest? Curiosity? Well, whatever that look was, at least it didn’t seem like it was about to crush him like a grape.

Barney _really_ didn’t feel like diplomacy right now. Standing under the gaze of its huge, icy-green eyes like a pinned bug under a microscope wasn’t doing any favors for his nerves, and he felt his stomach lurch as its hands slowly came up to its enormous chest. Barney worried at his gloves for a moment and finally cleared his throat, breaking the silence between the two.

“Y-you, uh. . . I-I read your book, that you, uh. Left out. Is-Was that okay? I-I’m _real_ sorry if you-”

Barney’s rambling was cut off by the movement of the giant’s hands.

“ _Yes. That was fine, I’m glad you liked my book._ ”

Barney took a second to double-check his notes.

“O-Oh. Thank you, I. . . Thank you.”

Well, that was a relief. The last thing he needed was for the human to be touchy about its stuff. Barney swallowed hard, and tried to suppress the quivering of his tail; nothing good could come from showing fear in front of a human.

“ _Are you okay? You seemed nervous yesterday._ ”

“Yeah! I-I’m just _peachy keen._ ”

Well, shit. Now Barney was going to die because he couldn’t stop running his damn mouth off in front of the building-sized monster while he was dead in the open, sitting in the middle of the damn table.

Though, to its credit, the giant didn’t bring a massive fist down onto him, killing him instantly; instead, it almost seemed to pull a _worried_ face. What the hell kind of game was it playing at? Barney knew better than anyone that humans just _do not care_ about the safety and wellbeing of borrowers, much less did they care about their _emotional states_. 

“ _Can I do anything to help you? I can get you more peanut butter, if you’d like._ ”

Okay, this _had_ to be a trap. Did it really think he was stupid enough to take food from it? The giant may have already guessed that there were more like him somewhere nearby that he was taking food back to, and it wanted to wipe them all out by sending him back with poisoned food. That particular line of thought was doing little good for Barney’s nerves, and he worried his tail fluff between his paws while speaking.

“N-No, that’s okay. I, um, I’d just like you to know that we’ll be gone before you know it, out of your hair and all by spring at the least, we’d go sooner if the weather would. . .”

Barney trailed off as the human’s hands began to move again.

“ _We?_ ”

Oh. . . _Fuck._

“I-I. . .”

Barney stammered and trailed off again, staring up terrified at the enormous creature looming over him that suddenly seemed at _least_ twice as big as before, towering over him like some terrible monolithe. If it had guessed about his family before, it definitely knew now, and all because he couldn’t watch what came out of his fucking mouth. Barney’s vision began to swim, and he sat down on the cold wood, more out of an inability to stand then a desire to be seated.

“ _Hey, hey, you’re okay. It’s okay if there’s a few more of you._ ”

The human had to be kidding, or lying, or playing some vicious game where it pretends it’s fine with borrowers around so that it can lure everyone out and kill them. Jesus, how the hell did he get into this mess? He might have been okay if it was just the one time on the counter, but then he went and tried to _talk_ to the fucking thing. As if it would have anything to say except for lies and tricks. God, he needed to get the fuck out of here, needed to warn everyone and start packing to run. To hell with the weather, they needed to leave _now_.

“U-Um. I really sort of need to get going, is- Can I please leave? Please?”

“ _Of course! But I don’t think I caught your name, mine is G-O-R-D-O-N._ ”

Gordon, huh? It’s a pretty normal name for a creature that would probably murder Barney’s entire family if given the chance; should he give them his name? There’s no real harm to be done, considering what they already know.

“The name’s Barney Calhoun, it’s. . . Uh. N-Nice to meet you.”

His voice cracks on the last part, and he forces a grimace of a smile; Barney just hopes that they can’t see fine enough details to figure out that he was completely faking sincerity.

“ _It’s nice to meet you too. I’ll leave the room now, okay?_ ”

“O-Okay.”

A few more unnervingly quiet footsteps later, and Barney was alone on the table; He carefully climbed down the side once again, ears straining at the sides of his head to pick up any shuffling from the other room; the human hadn’t made a move yet, but better safe than sorry. Finally hitting solid ground once again, he made his way over the tiny crack in the wall, mulling over the problem that had occupied much of his mind for the past few days.

What the hell was he going to tell Eli and Kleiner?


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> grrrrrr i hate this chapter

Soft bootsteps echoed back at him in the narrow, claustrophobic confines of the wall tunnel; the encounter had gone well enough, however Barney still couldn’t shake the low anxiety building in his chest. As he tread the old path home, he found that the droning, buzzing feeling in the back of his head, the underlying feeling that something was terribly, terribly wrong. That anxious sort of dangersense had kept Barney alive more than a few times, though more than a few times he had ignored it and been just fine as well. Besides, he was very nearly home, and the human of the house had more than enough opportunity to kill or kidnap him earlier. He would be fine.

The door was unlocked, allowing him to simply walk on into the little living room. Kleiner and Eli were present together by the fireplace, repairing a coat and nursing a mug of tea, respectively; Kleiner looked up and, setting down the oversized steel rod that passed as a needle, stood, Lamarr skittering at his heels. He looked worried.

“Ah, there you are, back from your. . . borrowing trip, already?

Shit. Yeah, Kleiner knew something was up. Lucky for Barney, he had actually borrowed a few things while he was out, a piece of bread crust and some thread. He slung his pack off of his shoulders, rifling through it to place the items on the table.

“Yeah, I just wanted to get out of the den, figured I might as well make myself useful.”

Kleiner winced at that.

“Barney, you should know that you don’t need to perform such tasks in your situation. Not only is it detrimental to your emotional health, it’s also downright _dangerous._ Who knows what could happen to you if you’re spotted again?”

Barney winced, the scenarios Kleiner was referring to playing out in his head already; bloody, terrifying death at best, torture at worst. 

“Y-yeah, I get the picture. I just can’t stay cooped up in here, y’know? It feels. . .”

Barney trailed off, staring up at the ceiling.

“Tense.”

He finished.

“I understand feeling tense, but you really should think about your own safety. You can take a break if you need one, you know.”

Eli interjected.

“Yeah, I’ll stay in for a few days. . . sometime later, I’ve just got to stock up on a couple more supplies.

Eli and Kleiner shared a Look with a capital L; they’re very clearly onto how unusual it is for Barney to be going borrowing just after being spotted by a human. 

“Barney. . . This is seriously reckless. I really don’t think you should be going out so often, the human could have set traps or-”

“No, seriously, i-it’s fine! They only saw me the one time! There’s no traps around, at least, not any I’ve found, a-and there hasn’t really been any _trouble_ lately, s-so. . .I-I. . .”

Barney trailed off, acutely aware of the tight ball of anxiety that had been growing in his chest since he walked in the door. Kleiner and Eli were both still Looking at each other, and he didn’t really have that much of a defence beyond denying the times that he had shown himself. God, could they tell he was lying?

“Well. . . I _suppose_ that if the human isn’t onto you. . . then perhaps they didn’t see you clearly enough to discern what you were? Or, it could simply be waiting for an exterminator to arrive.”

“I think that’s enough talk about exterminators, Isaac. Why don’t we let Barney get on to bed?”

“Ah, of course, he must be very tired after going on yet another trip this week.”

Barney chuckled.

“Yeah, I’m just about to fall over on the floor. I’ll see you in the morning, doc.”


	9. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE FUCKIN MADE IT WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! arc 2 will begin shortly, i'm still working out some kinks within the plot rn but the first chapter will probably be finished within a few days

The room was cold; despite the fireplace in just the other room, Barney found himself shivering, his teeth chattering quietly. Sometimes it seemed as though no matter how much wood scraps they piled into the little hearth, the cold silence of the empty house swallowed all the noise and warmth. He rubbed his paws together as he sat in the quiet, thinking.

It was too cold. The temperature had been steadily dropping for the past few weeks, and when Barney had climbed up to a windowsill, he had seen white blanketing the vast world beyond the frost-kissed glass. Unless the weather suddenly started cooperating, they wouldn’t be able to leave the house for at least a few months, more than enough time for the human, “Gordon”, to call an exterminator; he wasn’t going to tell his family about the situation, of course, because what point was there in stressing them out even more? There was nothing they could _do_. There was nothing any of them could do about any of this, except wait for the winter to pass.

It was so _frustrating_. Once again, he was completely at a human’s mercy, relying on them to not murder him, or kidnap him, or do any number of horrible things to his family. All he could hope to do was keep the giant happy, keep them from finding his home, keep it away from Alyx and the others. Barney sighed, rubbing at his eyes with his paws. The last couple of days had taken their toll on him, his body showing the stress with dark eyebags and stiff, aching joints, like a machine left to rust.

Barney got up off of the little cushion that served as a bed, shoving the covers aside as he stretched, his back giving a satisfying _pop_. He gently pushed aside the curtain separating his room from the rest of the den. Laying splayed out in front of the hearth, soaking up the warmth of the crackling fire in front of her, Alyx scratched away at her journal, writing in the warm, gentle glow of the fireplace. At the sound of pawsteps she turned her head up towards her uncle, giving an inquisitive little ear twitch as she stood.

“You’re still having trouble sleeping?”

“Yeah, I just figured I’d make a cup of tea or somethin’. I was thinkin’ about going out again a few days from now, and I don’t want to be going out tired.”

“Yeah, I guess. You’re sure you’re okay to go borrowing again? I _know_ you feel like you have to do everything you can to help us out, but seriously, if you need a break, I can pick up the slack.”

“I’m sure you could, hell, you’re probably the best borrower I’ve seen since your dad, back when he was younger, but, if I’m bein’ honest, this is just as much for my sake as it is for yours. I just can’t stand bein’ cooped up in the den all day and night, it’s been drivin’ me up the wall.”

Barney hated lying to Alyx, hated lying in general, really, but what option did he have, really? There was nothing any of them could do, and panicking his family for no reason didn’t seem like the best option. He needed to keep his family safe, and if that meant lying to them and hanging around with a giant monster, then so be it.

The only thing he could do now was wait.


End file.
